Post navigation

Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Thinking and Watching on my Mother’s Birthday?

Happy Wednesday! And Happy Birthday to my mother again! Now, let’s talk about stuff and keep me awake at work, because I was up much too late writing my Mom’s birthday post.

I’ll start!

Reading: I watched GLOW on Netflix over the weekend, after finishing Sacred Games because Netflix told me too, and then I got sucked into reading reviews and discussion boards. I looooove reading reviews, and now that I can’t read them of Indian films, I have to feed my urges by reading them of other stuff.

Thinking: I think Dog Hazel might now be too skinny, after being much too fat when I first got her. I need to start spoiling her with treats more instead of running her up and down the stairs.

Watching: Well, Sacred Games of course. And GLOW, as mentioned above. And not much else, all that Sacred Games writing took time. I am trying to decide what Telugu/Tamil and Malayalam to watch next when I have time. I want something silly and summary and light and entertaining for Telugu/Tamil (think Gentleman or I, like that). And I want something WITH A HAPPY ENDING for Malayalam. And not, like, “happy for Malayalam”. Actually happy! There, that’s your challenge, what can you recommend me?

Now, question for you! Inspired by my mother’s birthday:

What is the one Indian movie you most want to share with your Mother?

Oh this is a hard one! There have been so many. But I think the one I was most excited to share with her was Bajrangi Bhaijaan, because I knew she would just love it. And she did! Despite all her doubt about ever enjoying a Salman Khan movie, she really really did.

55 thoughts on “Wednesday Watching Post: What Are You Reading and Thinking and Watching on my Mother’s Birthday?”

Happy b’day to your mother.Is she the avenging Rakhee type of mother or the loving ever forgiving mother like Fareeda?I’ve made my way through most of Sunil Dutt’s filmography.I watched Yeh Rastey Hain Pyar Ke (19630 last week and Ek Gunah Aur Sahi (1980) this week.Films separated by Yeh Rastey Hain Pyar Ke years but sharing a lot of similiarities.Leela Naidu in the former is the mother of two children while Parveen is a virgin bride.However in both of them, Sunil’s wife gets drugged and raped.Sunil is the one who introduces them to the rapist.In both the movies, the wives have to do some penance before being forgiven -which I find deeply troubling.In fact Leela Naidu dies at the end of Yeh Rastey, It’s based on the Nanavati affair (and yes Sunil is in uniform in Court) and is a deadly bore.Ashok Kumar as Sunil’s defence lawyer livens up things some.Sunil jumps to the conclusion that she was having an affair and she doesn’t correct the assumption.

In Ek Gunah, Parveen has more agency.Sunil is a bank robber serving time in prison.He is blackmailed by a member of the parole board and told to rob a bank in exchange for an early release.His wife,Parveen serves as the go-between since he’s in prison.Parveen decides not to tell Sunil. Her reasoning is that Sunil will immediately kill the offender and end up back in prison/hanged since he’s a repeat offender.And when it seems as if the villain is going to spill the beans she shoots him.So Sunil is angry with her on two counts – first for not telling him the truth and the second for denying him his ‘revenge’. Of course who knew that the best marriage therapy is working out your issues while on the run from the law.Sunil-Parveen age difference is a bit daunting.But the heist and the many twists on the day of the robbery saves the movie.

She’s mostly Fareeda, but she got a little avenge-y and Raakhee like when I would get sick and the doctor’s didn’t give me medicine right away.

I don’t much like Rustom, but at least she was seduced in that one and not raped. And seduced in a way that was sympathetic and understandable as her character was established. Also, my goodness! Don’t marry Sunil, terrible things will happen to you!

I already knew the best marriage therapy was going on the run from the happy ending of Blackmail 🙂

I guess the lesson is marry Sunil but be really careful with the men he introduces you to.Vinodayatra is really good if you don’t mind Dileep. Another movie with the Peter Pan syndrome is Veendum Chila Veetukaryangal which explores the father-son dynamic.The heroines in both the movies are very confident and have a take-charge attitude.They are the breadwinners of the family after all.Thoovalsparsham is another take on 3 bachelors taking care of the baby left on their doorstep.Manassinakkare is also quite good in exploring family dynamics.Pranchiyettan and the Saint is a hoot but has a weak ending.

U have to watch nadodikattu series at some point since its an important film in malayalam film history and u will always see references to it in other films..
‘Vettam’ is a no brainer comedy from priyadarshan that is permanently stored in my laptop. I watch it whenever i am bored and dont want anything serious. U will miss half of the humour but still there is a good amount of physical comedy. More in lines with priyans hindi films than his earlier malayalam films.

Did u get the jokes in the Hindi remakes of Malayalam movies like Hulchul, Hera Pheri etc cos the Hindi dialogues in all Priyadarshan remakes are literal translations from Malayalam dialogues & sounded very fake. Anyways, all Sathyan Anthikadu movies have a happy pleasant ending.Sandesham is a classical satire on the political situation in Kerala but I doubt if you would get all the references. Vinodayathra is a very light watch & similar in storyline to WakeUp Sid. I think I had already recommended Yodha-fun action movie with high production values(for that period), A R Rahman’s second musical score & Puneet Issar.

Im watching Broadchurch upon Asmita’s recommendation & loving it. Even I’m looking for a light watch,all the dark themed series are getting a bit too depressing.
I’m kind of stuck on the below song. All those songs where the hero secretly loves & watches the heroine everyday & sings about her. Now instead of the hero, an overweight, unseemly guy is singing & it’s still dreamy. Love the subversion done & the catchy music.

Yeah, the Priyadarshan movies in Hindi that I like are definitely because they are Hindi remakes. I like the subversion of the roles played by actors I know doing different things than they usually do (Akshay Kumar playing a glasses wearing nervous nelly, like that). And I do know enough Hindi to get the wordplay in a way I can’t in Malayalam. Makes me feel so guilty because I am morally apposed to language swapping remakes, but comedy is really hard if you don’t know the language/references!

Yodha! Yes! I’ve been thinking about that for ages. Maybe this is the week. Or, Adventures of something, the new Asif Ali-Bhavana movie that just got added to Netflix. It looks very happy, but then it’s Malayalam, so it could be a happy sunny movie with a great poster, and then everyone dies in a fiery car crash in the last 20 minutes (I am still bitter about Chitram).

I love Broadchurch. The second and third seasons are strangely kind of happier I thought? Mostly because you get to watch the two leads get closer and closer and better and better friends. If you want something high quality and mostly very happy, check out Call the Midwife. Or ridiculously unrealistically happy, Father Brown. And if you want a mystery miniseries with two female leads as friends and detectives, check out Scott and Bailey. (I watch way too much BBC)

Oh while we’re on Broadchurch. So I totally didn’t imagine the pro-female profess theme in it did I? For me, it was literally just David Tennant and his delicious Scottishness drowning in a sea of strong female characters! And it didn’t feel odd at all. Not forced. Or have British shows always been female role heavy?!

I think they’ve always been female role heavy? I’m thinking of the other BBC shows I’ve seen and they’ve all been at least 50/50 male and female. Even something like Midsommer Murders which has a male investigating team, the suspects they talk to are often female and they include the hero’s wife and daughter as part of the story. I am sure their are majority male shows out there that I am not watching, but there are certainly a ton of female roles in the large number of shows I do watch.

I really do love the fact that female roles in British shows are so real. Women that don’t try to be like a man. They’re regular women that are sensitive, they cry when breaking bad news to people, they make mistakes but they’re also brilliant at their work and no formal cop dos that require a makeover for the tough cop and her partner fancying her. Olivia Colman, in fact, has done the silly small town woman cop in Hot Fuzz too and she was hilarious in it! I can’t wait to see her in The Crown next season! I thought they’d just go with Helen Mirren as older QEII.

What I notice most is how “real” they look. That shows my American TV preferences, that I assume actresses will look fake. There is really nothing more fake than an American female TV star. They never seem to age, perfect bodies and perfect skin, perfect everything. But on the BBC shows, the actresses look like real women. I can actually tell them apart from each other because their noses didn’t come from a catelog.

I think just a less insane celebrity culture. Just my theory, but the state supported nature of BBC seems like it lends itself more to working actors, people who make a good living but aren’t super rich, and aren’t quite as far removed from “normal” people as the American stars. In America, just to be on TV, you need a nose job, teeth capped and whitened, a personal trainer and hours in the gym every day, tanning sessions weekly, personal professional hair stylist, botox on any wrinkles, and of course the basic standard body shape to begin with, short and small boned. And you have to be either under 35, or so well maintained that you can fake it. It’s several thousand a year at least just average maintenance, on top of the time it takes to do it all, like a second job just to look right, and you have to do it or else the celebrity press will pick apart your flaws and the casting directors will pick one of any million others who are desperate for a chance.

But with the BBC type actors, it feels like the money is less and the fame is less and the pressure is less and the competition is less and they end up just looking like real people.

Also, they pride themselves on their village and small town culture. Which brings me to the totally unrelated topic of council estates!!! You so have to check out this blog Municipal Dreams!! I’m pretty sure I’ve told you about it before.

I’ve been wanting to watch Molly Aunty Rocks! Oh this is great, you are getting me all excited about all sorts of movies, maybe I will actually manage multiple Malayalams this week and get a little ahead in my viewing. I got to see the other one in theaters, a really nice movie, and another role where Nivin just sort of stepped back and let the ensemble shine. I like him so much for doing things like that, like as a person, that he doesn’t care about his image or his stardom, he will support a movie about a family instead.

Now you’ve got me wanting to watch that movie again! Maybe I should suggest it to my Mom as the next one we watch together? It’s so aware of everyone’s flaws, there is no true perfect hero, everyone is just doing the best they can. And Nivin’s best really isn’t that great.

Yes, as much as any movies. But she is very very very very very very very picky about movies, and also extremely hard to predict. Loved Bangalore Days and Ohm Shanti Oshaana, didn’t like Premam or Action Hero Biju. I am mystified by this. Also, loves the Bahubali movies, didn’t like Magadheera. Very upset after watching Fan because of how poor young Gaurav was abused and hurt (which is meaningless if you haven’t seen Fan, but if you have seen it, you will know it is an odd reason to dislike the film). Got distracted during Dangal because there was a baby sitting in front of us and she was more interested in making faces at him/her than watching the movie.

It makes showing her movies EXTREMELY STRESSFUL. When it is a success, it is wonderful (Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Bahubali, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Bangalore Days), but when it is a failure, it is very depressing (every other movie in the world).

YOU DIDN’T LIKE PREMAM??????? But Nivin’s beard! And mustache! And Sai’s everything! I may have to revoke your membership in the Nivin Pauly fanclub that exists in my mind. And we must never tell Asmita this.

Molly Aunty might be worth a shot, she really liked 2 States (why??? I mean, it’s a good movie, but why that and not another?) and that has Revathy too.

Lol.. for a while I thought I was watching movies the wrong way or something cos everyone raved about Premam & Maheshinte Prathikaram & I just found them okay. Then I realised it’s a new way of film watching experience, rooted in giving a natural feel to the audience which is being appreciated while I was still a traditionalist who was looking for a good old three act story telling. I loved the bearded Nivin & Sai Pallavi but it wasn’t enough to justify all the hype around it. Also I cdnt understand how all the non-Malayalis loved it cos the conversations had many references that wdnt have made sense or sounded funny to others. But I’m guessing the drunk boys gang & the whole college era found resonance everywhere & for the women there’s of course bearded Nivin..;))

Just saw you mentioning Angamali Diaries in the other post. So ‘Angamali Diaries’ is another of the so-great-the-world-is-going-nuts but bleh movie for me. See you mentioned all the good things about it’s making-budget, cast, long shots,all around gritty feel,visuals etc-are all form related greatness. But the actual content of this movie’s or Premam’s is pretty weak. I don’t know if it’s also because the characters(these are character driven stories without much of a story)of these movies is very very familiar in that ppl like George(I doubt on the hotness quotient though)or Lichi could be found in any college or towns. It was a hot topic for discussion in one of my college groups when a friend said ‘Are there two Angamali Diaries? I didn’t like the one I watched’. The conclusion we reached was that these movies are definitely very well made but does not have great writing which was the hallmark of the movies that we were used to. They are enjoyed more by ppl who have discovered Malayalam movies newly. There’s now more than one way of making & liking Malayalam films which is just great & opens the gates for all kinds of movies to be made.

As someone who has newly found Malayalam films, what feels so different to me about them is the lack of a traditional simple narrative. It’s not “boy meets girl, fights gangsters, wins girl”, it’s about spending time with these characters and the plot slowly unfolding. Like, trying to explain the plot of Spadikam or Kireedam, it would either take no time at all (Thilikan is a jerk and ruins everything) or as long as the movie itself, there are so many layers and small incidents and so on. The newer films, for me, just feel like they kick it up a notch, make the narrative even more kind of spread out and lost in a sea of incidents.

Yep, I am learning to appreciate them better now with this knowledge that they are meant to be like that-without a definite narrative. They are also movies one can go back to & watch on repeat for the small incidents & sounds and all other fun aspects.

You may😀& thank you! Broadchurch led me to other British crime series like the Fall, Happy Valley, and I need a break. I also miss a simple, frothy Malayalam or Tamil movie. The next film of Bangalore Days director is releasing this Friday-so I may give that a try.

I haven’t, looks like it’s not available in the US yet. There’s this very unfair delay for us with BBC shows, they have to finish being broadcast on BBC, and then on BBC America (which very few people have), and then it gets to come to PBS, and after allllllll of that, it hits the streaming services.

Good thing about India is that your friend usually DM you links to where you can get those shows online since they have no hope of making it to streaming platforms in time. Or you have cousins that give you shows they got from friends of friends. I get most shows from Onitube these days which might not be entirely legal. Or is it? I can’t tell.

Watching: Love per square foot on Netflix. Was a nice rom-com. Vicky Kaushal was good and loved the Pathak sisters. Also saw Kissing Booth – which I didn’t like so much, I’ve outgrown it is what I’m guessing cos some folks loved it.
Reading: Men without women, had rave reviews but so far not liking it.
Mal movie recios: Have you watched Salt N Pepper? That one had a nice, happy ending. I keep recommending Anuraga Karikkin Vellam as well, which is nice and breezy but you don’t watch it 😦

The 101s in particular break down to research versus writing. So it greatly depends on how much research I need to do. The Ambani one or the Savitri one, where I was starting without much info, I did about 2-4 hours of research, and then another 2-4 hours writing and cross-checking what I said as I went. The Sanjay Dutt ones, I had the information in my head enough to know what I wanted to say, so it was just writing and cross-checking as I went, no preliminary research needed.

Film reviews, it depends on if I am inspired or not, and how serious I want to take it. The Mili review just took me about 2 hours start to finish, including adding in images and all that stuff. Something like Kireedam would take me much much longer because I want to be in context with the actors, the director, the genre of film, and all of that before I even start writing, and then really cover everything I can in the review. So, maybe 4-6 hours.

The fanfics are the easiest, if I am inspired I can write the whole thing in 2 hours, and it’s not like I have to do any research. It’s part of the reason I keep doing them they are so easy and fast.

I have an important question. I’m planning to at least start watching Sacred Games this weekend, but I just saw a review that says it starts with a scene that is violent against a Pomeranian. I hate any kind of animal getting hurt in a movie. I realize it sometimes has artistic merit but it is my hang-up. It will seriously ruin the movie for me. (And yes, I’m fine with violence against people. I know.) Is it possible to skip this scene? Is it really the very first scene or will it come up a bit later? If anyone can help me avoid this it would be very much appreciated.

Thinking: Please stop raining. Fortunately I am not in the way of the flooding and I really shouldn’t complain, but it is raining excessively everywhere in Japan and I’m about done with it.

Last week I started Love Aaj Kaal (again) and was looking forward to watching it but when I started the subtitles were really messed up. I think they might be as much as a minute off. So, I don’t know if I should go to the trouble of exchanging a bunch of emails with Erosnow tech support since it’s just a rewatch. At any rate, that was abandoned and I watched OMG on Netflix. How I loved it! Nice message movie but not too heavy. Missed a couple of jokes but this was easily rectified by a trip to Wikipedia. I liked it so much I had the, for me, unusual feeling of immediately wanting to see more Akshay Kumar, so I started Special 26 again to get my Akki fix.

I just timed it for you. It’s over at 40 seconds in to the show. So I would say, set a timer for one minute (just to be on the safe side), you can come back in the room after that. Nothing important happens in the opening minute, you can afford to miss it entirely.

Oh, thanks so much for doing that! It’s a relief if I don’t have to accidentally watch a Pomeranian get hurt. My sister has a Pom and I just can’t deal.

Unfortunately Japanese Netflix doesn’t have Namastey London. I keep thinking that eventually we will get the same things you have, like after they finish being embargoed, but it doesn’t seem to work like that. We have (1) big movies with Shahrukh (Dilwale, JHMS, Raees), (2) sex comedies (Yama Pagla Deewana 1-3), (3) independent and regional stuff (Makkhi, Colkatay Columbus (Why?)), and pretty much the entire oeuvre of John Abraham and Vidya Balan. I cannot find any link between this random collection and Japanese watching tastes. As I’ve mentioned before, they love Amiir here, but there are no Aamir movies on Netflix but Lagaan.

I always picture some quiet little person at Netflix HQ rebelliously picking only the movies they love the most. Look for a Japanese office worker with a secret photo of John and Vidya from Salaam-E-Ishq in his wallet, and blame him.

Happy birthday Margaret’s mom!!! Man, your house must have been lit with parties in the summer !!!

I already watch most films with mom. I so want to show her Game of Thrones and Lost and Stranger Things and Westworld and Big Little Lies. But that probably won’t happen anytime soon because she absolutely detests nudity on screen and explicit sex scenes. Gore she’s fine with! Implied fucked up things too! She adores Manto, so that’s understandable! Lol

I first watched Stranger Things after I’d watched Super 8 quite a few times and it felt like those first american sitcoms we got in the 90s. Only darker. Mom used to watch those with us. Strange Things should so work for her!!!